Blogs I Follow

Posts Tagged ‘West Bank’

The murder of three Israeli youth by unknown Palestinians and the less-publicized but equally tragic murder of three Palestinian youth by Israelis, along with Israeli bombing of urban areas in Gaza and the arrest and detention of hundreds of Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces, serves as a reminder that Israeli-Palestinian peace is still a long way off.

And the Obama administration deserves much of the blame for the failure of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

It had originally been hoped that the United States would present a binding framework along the lines of what moderate Israeli and Palestinian political leaders had agreed to in unofficial talks in Geneva in 2003: Israel would recognize a Palestinian state based roughly on the pre-1967 borders with mutual territorial swaps, which would leave the Palestinians with 22 percent of historic Palestine and allow Israel to keep the remaining 78 percent; the Palestinian state would be demilitarized and all irregular militias disarmed; illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory near the Israeli border — encompassing close to 80 percent of the settlers — would be incorporated into Israel while settlers in the more remote settlements would be required to return to Israel; there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel, but there would be international assistance in helping them resettle in the new Palestinian state; and some Israeli troops would remain along border crossings between the Palestinian state and its Arab neighbors, eventually to be replaced by international forces.

Image: A section of the barrier — erected by Israeli officials to prevent the passage of Palestinians — with graffiti using President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote when facing the Berlin Wall, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” (Photo credit: Marc Venezia)

The Palestinian government agreed to these terms. Israel rejected them. Rather than make public this framework, and thereby hope the Israeli public would pressure its right-wing government to compromise, the Obama administration instead insisted that “both sides” had shown a lack of will to compromise.

An interview with an anonymous U.S. official close to the peace talks in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper, confirmed numerous other reports that the Palestinian side made major concessions while the Israeli side essentially refused to make any, generally refusing to talk about any substantive issues.

A host of Democratic and Republican former officials — including a former national security adviser, secretary of defense, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, trade representative, and undersecretary of state for political affairs — went on record arguing that the Obama administration would have to challenge the Israeli government’s hard line towards the Palestinians in order for the peace process to be successful. Unfortunately, the White House apparently had no interest in doing so.

Instead, Washington has focused on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to give in to U.S. and Israeli demands that he recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” While the Palestinian government, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the ruling Fatah party have all recognized the state of Israel for more than 20 years, the Obama administration has effectively moved the goalposts by declaring that recognizing the Israeli government, acknowledging its right to exist, and providing security guarantees is not enough, insisting that the Palestinians explicitly recognize the state of Israel’s ethno-religious identity as well.

No previous administration has put forward such a requirement. President Jimmy Carter never made such demands on Egypt, nor did President Bill Clinton require this of Jordan as a condition for their peace treaties with Israel.

Abbas has said that Israel can identify itself however it wants, but — given that 20 percent of the Israeli population is ethnically Palestinian Arab — it would be politically impossible to agree to something that would acknowledge second-class status for other Palestinians.

Never in history has any country been required to recognize the ethnic or religious identity of another state as a condition for peace. It appears, then, that the Obama administration’s demand may have been an effort to destroy any chance of a peace agreement and leave an opening to blame the Palestinians — despite their agreement to virtually every other issue — for the failure of the peace process.

The Obama administration had been strongly pressured by congressional supporters of the Israel’s right-wing government who supported a resolution calling on the President to push the Palestinians to recognize Israel explicitly “as a Jewish state.”

Meanwhile, a broad bipartisan effort is growing in the Congress to blame the failure of the peace talks exclusively on the Palestinians and to force the administration to cut all ties with the Palestine Authority.

Unless and until the Obama administration decides to end its unconditional backing for Israel’s right-wing government and instead support Israeli and Palestinian moderates, there will be no hope for peace.

Stephen Zunes, a Santa Cruz resident, writes for PeaceVoice, is a professor of Politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, and educational issues. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:

NABLUS, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) refused to allow treatment of Dr. Abdulsattar Qassem, a lecturer of political science at Najah university, in Jerusalem.

He said in a terse statement on Monday that the IOA refused to give him permission to enter Jerusalem for medical treatment.

He added that his request for treatment at Makased hospital was turned down for “security reasons”.

Qassem said that he asked for a similar permission a few weeks ago but was also rejected, adding that doctors had recommended his treatment in Jerusalem due to presence of better treatment for him there.

GAZA, (PIC)– The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) expressed in a statement deep concern over the deterioration of humanitarian conditions of the civilian population due to the aggravation of the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR is deeply concerned that the current crisis may impact the access of 1.7 million Palestinians to vital services, including the supply of drinking water, and that this crisis may result in the suspension of work in some vital sectors, such as health, sanitation and education, according to the statement.

According to PCHR’s follow-up of the chronic power crisis in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Energy Authority in Gaza announced that the operation of the Gaza Power plant was totally stopped on Friday morning, 01 November 2012.

PCHR confirmed that the shutdown of the Gaza plant power has left serious consequences on the humanitarian conditions of…

GAZA, BEIRUT, RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Youssef Rizqa, political advisor to Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza, called for forming an international committee to investigate the killing of President Yasser Arafat.

Rizqa ruled out that the PA will open an investigation to uncover Arafat’s killers, “because the Israeli entity will not allow that, as it is considered one of the main suspects.”

A report by Swiss scientists said the results of tests on Arafat’s remains “moderately support the proposition that the death was the consequence of poisoning with polonium-210”.

The tests demonstrated unexpectedly high levels of polonium and the report said polonium levels in bones and soft tissues were up to 18 times higher than the normal limit.

Hamas movement reiterated that the Israeli occupation is directly responsible for the assassination of President Arafat, and asked for opening an urgent investigation and taking the necessary measures…

As the world is busy debating whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did indeed use chemical weapons against its own people or if he is instead the victim of a somber plot hatched by foreign powers to “legitimize” their invasion of yet another Muslim country, Israel is calculatingly moving against Islam’s beating heart, the al-Aqsa Mosque in al-Quds (Jerusalem).

While Muslims worldwide are dissecting and assessing their political affiliations — pro or anti — the Zionist entity of Israel is using such engineered confusion to inconspicuously carry out an aggression against Islam of such magnitude that only a few have dared fathom it, let alone warned against it.

Israel is looking to build a temple on the ground of al-Aqsa Mosque, thus desecrating Islam’s third most sacred place after Mecca and Medina, thus sullying the very ground which the prophet of God, Mohammed (PBUH), walked upon, which…

Gaza, Alray – A document released by Israeli civil administration exhibited that Palestinians continued to cultivate the land where Amona outpost had been installed until 1996, according to Haaretz newspaper’s Wednesday’s edition.

This document refutes settlers’ claim that the land where the outpost is located was an uninhabited territory.

The newspaper said that Amona, one of the first outposts built on Palestinian land in the West Bank, was set up on private Palestinian land registered in Department of Land Registry in the name of its respective Palestinian owners who are residents of Silwad town northeast of Ramallah.

The Israeli authorities demolished 8 buildings after a petition to demolish the outpost was filed in 2008 by Yesh Din on behalf of…

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– Jewish settlers, on Wednesday under the protection of the Israeli army, removed a wall inside the corridors of the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil city in the southern occupied West Bank and stole its stones.

Taysir Abu Sneineh, the Director General of the Ministry of Endowments in al-Khali, told Quds Press that the cleaners of the Ibrahimi Mosque found yesterday that the settlers, with the support of the Israeli occupation army, removed an ancient wall inside the mosque and took its stones to an unknown destination

Abu Sneineh considered that this act represents a blatant assault on the Ibrahimi Mosque and aims to change the mosque’s features and Judaize it, under the protection and support of the Israeli government.

On Thursday 27th June, beginning at 9 AM, Israeli military bulldozers demolished the homes and structures of four families in the village of Khirbet ‘Atuf, a shepherding village east of Tammun in Tubas Governorate. One man was taken to the hospital in Nablus after being physically beaten while attempting to protect his family from Israeli soldiers. Another man had his vehicle confiscated by Israeli authorities, and the total cost of his lost property totals $13,000 USD, not a small sum for a shepherding family. While Israeli authorities usually provide demolition notices to the families whose homes they are destroying, these families were given none. Other villagers fear that the demolitions of their own homes…

Al Qassam website – The Inspector General of the Israeli occupation Police, Yohanan Danino, granted the Israeli soldier who had killed the youth Muhammad Salaymeh a medal of honor.The Israeli soldier had shot Martyr Salaymeh, 17, in mid-December last year after he had not responded to her call, as he suffered hearing impairment.Yohanan Danino commended the ability of the soldier to “successfully” deal with the situation, according to his claims.The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the city of al-Khalil had condemned the killing of the martyr Salaymeh.

GAZA, (PIC)– The Refugee Affairs Department of Hamas announced on Tuesday evening, the launch of its English website.

The Department director, Abdullah Hassouna, said that the main objective of the website is to convey the voice of the Palestinian refugees in the world to the foreign media and to the institutions that are interested in their cause, in an attempt to expand the circle of international attention to the refugees’ issue.

He stressed that the Hamas’s refugee affairs department will make all efforts in order to achieve progress in the issue of refugees.

Hassouna has also revealed that the Department is planning to launch other websites in other languages in order to convey the voice of the Palestinian refugees to the entire world.

The Refugee Affairs Department has launched several years ago a website in Arabic language. It has also created pages in…

Around a 1000 Palestinians living in Bedouin communes and residents of Al-Maleh area in the northern Plaines of the occupied West Bank started leaving their homes and tents after receiving military orders from the Israeli army informing them that the soldiers will be conducting drills using live ammunition.

Aref Daraghma, head of the village council of Al-Maleh area and the Bedouin tribes, stated that around a 1000 residents started leaving their lands in order to avoid harm, and to avoid clashes with the soldiers who intend to remove them by force if they do not leave.

Daraghma added that the residents fear that the Israeli military training will cause destruction of their lands and property, and that the soldiers would even prevent them from returning to their lands and homes.

Local sources said that IOF soldiers patrolled the city streets on foot in a further provocation of the citizens who threw stones and empty bottles on the invaders.

They said that one of the citizens was wounded in his neck with a rubber bullet while a second was injured in his hand while eight others were treated for gas inhalation.

The confrontations took place at the city’s main roundabout near the grand mosque, the sources said, adding that worshippers were forced to remain inside the mosque and a number of them suffered breathing difficulty as a result of the intensified shooting of teargas canisters in the vicinity of the mosque.

The Israeli occupation forces have shown a large amount of aggression recently in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Al Khalil (Hebron). Three Palestinian homes near the ancient Jewish cemetery were entered and searched on the 30 December. Another apartment rented by internationals had soldiers attempting to forcibly enter that same night, the armies’ alleged reason was to get onto the roof.

Today (31 December) Israeli army personnel entered deep into the H1 Palestinian-controlled area of the neighborhood at 4 pm and apprehended a person at a shop who was using a knife for his work. They detained him for more than an hour, during that time he was kept blindfolded.

Negligence of the Israeli soldiers exposes Palestinian children at risk on the way to school,
South Hebron Hills

At-Tuwani – December 26, Today the Israeli military escort left thirteen Palestinian children of Tuba and Magayir Al-Abeed alone along the way to school near the Israeli outpost of Havat Ma’on. This path is dangerous because the children were repeatedly attacked by the settler of the outpost. The army was over an hour late on the way to school and on the way back didn’t arrive at all, without explanation. After two hours of waiting between At-Tuwani and Havat Ma’on, some international accompanied the children at home through a longer way (more than one hour instead of 20 minutes) in which the children were however often attacked by settlers.

This military escort was established in November 2004 by “Children Rights Committee of the…

The Palestinian Detainees Studies Center reported that the Israeli Salem military court sentenced three Palestinian children from Azzoun town near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia, to four months imprisonment each.

File – Arabs48

The court also delayed deliberations in the case of another child from Jenin, and released his brother.

Lawyer Mustafa Azmouti told the Center that that Salem court sentenced Qais Waddah Shbeita, 16, Mohammad Adel Shbeita, 16, and Mohammad Abdul-Fattah Radwan, 15, to four months each. They were all kidnapped after the army broke into their homes in Azzoun on December 7, and are currently held at the Majeddo prison.

In related news, the Salem court postponed deliberations in the case of a detained child identified as Ihsaan Ayman Aabed, 14, until December 30 after…

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/dec/28/israel-britain-west-bank-university Israel criticised by Britain over West Bank university Foreign Office says upgrade for college in settlement of Ariel will prove an obstacle to peace in the region Israel plans to found a university in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem The British government has warned that the official authorisation of Israel’s first settlement university will create another hurdle in the peace process. Israel’s defence secretary, Ehud Barak, approved the upgrade of a college in the settlement of Ariel, 11 miles inside the West Bank, earlier this week. In a statement released on Thursday, the British foreign office minister Alistair Burt said the UK was deeply disappointed by the decision. “Ariel is beyond the Green Line in a settlement that is illegal according to international law. This decision will deepen the presence of the settlements in the Palestinian territories and will create another obstacle to peace,” the statement said. Burt repeated the government’s call for Israel to reverse a recent spate of settlement expansion plans, saying it should “take no further steps aimed at expanding or entrenching settlement activity”. A spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry said it was “disappointing to see that a [UK Foreign Office] minister should adopt the contested Palestinian position hook, line and sinker, thus adding controversy where it is already in excess”. Britain and other European countries have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Israel’s plans to build thousands of new homes in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They say such expansion threatens the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. An internal analysis paper prepared by Israel’s foreign ministry has warned that the European Union may press for the establishment of a Palestinian state independent of negotiations in 2013. According to a report in Haaretz, the paper said: “A growing understanding can be seen in the EU of the ineffectiveness of the current process. Read the full report here

NAZARETH, (PIC)– The Israeli Supreme Court rejected the objection submitted by Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage regarding establishing a park in cemetery of Zarnouqa village, depopulated more than six decades ago, in 1948-occupied territories.

Al-Aqsa Foundation described, in a press statement on Tuesday, the court’s decision as biased to the Israeli Rehovot Municipality and as “an official tool contributing to the violation of the sanctity of dead Muslims and the obliteration of their graves, without respecting their religious constants”

The foundation demanded the municipality to immediately stop the works in the cemetery and find other areas to establish its parks and public facilities.

The lawyer for Al-Aqsa Foundation, Mohammed Suleiman, told the Israeli judge, who asked him to explain the reasons behind his opposition to the implementation of the municipality’s scheme, that implementing projects in a Muslim cemetery and on the ruins…

Missiles Kill Two Media Workers, Toddler; 10 Wounded

The deputy manager of al-Aqsa TV, Mohamed Abou Oun, inspects the car that two al-Aqsa cameraman were riding in when an Israeli missile struck them in Gaza City on November 20, 2012. The Israeli military said that Mahmoud al-Kumi, 29, and Hussam Salama, 30, were “Hamas operatives” but gave no information to support the claim.

Israeli officials have dangerously and unlawfully blurred the distinction between civilians who call for or support military attacks and those who directly participate in attacks.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director

(Gaza City) – Four Israeli attacks on journalists and media facilities in Gaza during the November 2012 fighting violated the laws of war by targeting civilians and civilian objects that were making no apparent contribution to Palestinian military operations.